In my last essay about Truth, I Want To Dig, I ended it by asking: “So, what truth am I looking for?” And I answered that question by saying, I Want To Remember Who I Am. The movie, The Lion King, popularized that expression, so most people are familiar with it and understand its meaning.

Generally it serves as a call to stay true to one’s core values, beliefs and purpose, and not let external pressures or challenges define or change one’s authentic self.

Easier said than done, I’m afraid. First you have to identify those core values, beliefs and purpose, and make sure they genuinely belong to you. That’s the tricky part. So, in this essay I will share with you my journey to remember who I am and how I tried to live accordingly.

The following song seems to set the tone perfectly. (It’s sung as a round, so give it 50 seconds and you should get the idea).

When I was a young girl in grade school, I remember day-dreaming about who I wanted to be when I grew up. Of course, I already was who I am, but I didn’t know it then. I thought I had to make myself into someone by playing a certain role, finding a group to belong to that would give me an identity, rather than just allow myself to develop instinctively according to my own inner guidance system.

In fact, according to what the mystics tell us, we were each born with a kind of homing device, which they called a divine spark, a unique potential engraved into our soul’s essence that forms the core of who a person is.

Unfortunately, however, over time and under pressure from fear, conformity or distraction that spark can start to dim and cause us to forget who we truly are and we start to flounder, lose our sense of direction, and end up settling for just going through the motions, almost mindlessly.

Trying to discover who you truly are doesn’t happen overnight and requires effort. It’s like a treasure hunt that takes you on a sacred journey to solve your own sacred mystery.

The two big influences in my life growing up were the US Military and the Catholic Church. Talk about two strikes against me from the get-go, two of the most authoritarian institutions on the planet! My dad was stationed at Fort Hamilton, in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, NY and my brother and I attended St. Patrick’s School also in Bay Ridge.

Every military base we ever lived on was always near a Catholic church, so both of them became a frame of reference for me. Each of them came with its own dogma and rules that we were required to swear allegiance to and comply with, under penalty of civil or eternal consequences. I never really felt like I had the freedom to make my own choices about how to live my life. It was all so structured, all about following orders and observing the rules, because if we did that then we were deemed to be good, which was what we were taught to strive for.

Given that structure, my options for the future seemed pretty limited, despite the fact that technically, as a soul created by and connected to Spirit/Source, my options should have been limitless. From my eight or ten year old perspective, my choices boiled down to becoming either an Army WAC, or a nun… or a whacky nun (lol), and there were certainly plenty of them around.

I thought the WACs looked very snappy in their creased uniforms walking around the base looking so important, twirling their keys on a chain. They really seemed quite impressed with themselves, as if they were in charge. I liked that idea.

Then, of course, there were the nuns. God bless them (!) They also looked pretty much in control too, in their starched black and white “habits.” Although they had a different air about them, like they meant business, and after all they were representatives of God, and they had you under constant surveillance, taking names and ready to kick butt, not literally, but in various other ways, if you stepped out of line. And that’s no joke. My poor brother had the scars to prove it. But there were some “fun nuns” though, and they inspired me throughout my education years.

What’s striking me here as I write this is that aside from each groups’ physical appearances, all joking aside, I was most impressed by what seemed to me to be independent women in positions of power and control, who were devoted to serving others, and I wanted to be one of them, in some capacity.

Of course, truth be told, in reality, they were subject to their higher authorities as well, such as the Church hierarchy, or to the higher ranking officers, the top brass, in the military, but I was too young back then to look deeper than surface appearances.

As I got older in my teens, however, I began to seriously wonder about entering the religious life. I didn’t really understand it, but I felt that something was calling me to it. But then I had this other part of me that didn’t want to be submissive to any authority and both the army and the religious life featured a lot of pomp and circumstance, believing that they were deserving of special respect due to their positions of power, control and rank.

Unconsciously, I wanted to prove that a young woman could be her own authority and didn’t need some priest or bishop, or pope ruling over her, or mediating between her and her Creator. I was going to be different. I wanted to show that I could be spiritual, a young woman of faith, but I could still be my own unique, crazy, fun-loving self at the same time, and have a direct channel through which I connected to God. Boy, was I ever naive! Who was I kidding? There was no place in either of those institutions for being your real and true self. It was like beating your head against a wall. I had a serious aversion to pretending to be something I wasn’t, and I could sniff out a phony from a mile away.

So as you can see, there were many obstacles on my journey to remembering who I am: the church, the military, and society as a whole. For instance, choices for women in general back in those days were very limited. It was assumed that women were most likely headed in the direction of marriage and family, which I wasn’t thinking about at all. In fact, if that’s what everybody else was doing, then that’s the last thing I wanted to do. When I went to college, there were only a few programs of study to choose from. Women could choose teaching, (which I chose) nursing, social work, or secretarial programs. Society was organized and all laid out for us. We were just supposed to fill one of those slots primarily designated for women. I really resented this. It was like being on a conveyor belt and you were shuttled along as if you were a piece of luggage being transported to the baggage compartment of an airliner.

Another thing that kept me from expressing my true self was the educational model of the fifties and sixties which was teacher centered, focusing on rote memorization, with little emphasis on creativity or critical thinking. Classroom behavior expectations were strict, and disobedience was consequenced. I learned to be told what to think and believe, and to wait for instructions on how to do something. Because completing assignments in the exact manner in which I was directed was what brought me the approval that I craved.

That particular lesson of waiting for instructions and following directions to the letter was learned early on in my school experience, as in right away, in kindergarten, at Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Lowell, MA. (not far from Fort Devens, just sayin’).

My teacher was a young nun, and I thought she was beautiful, but she weren’t no fun nun. One day she gave us an art project to do, a kind of collage or a mosaic of a fruit bowl with different colored construction paper corresponding to each piece of fruit in the bowl. We were instructed to individually cut the pieces out and then arrange and glue them into the bowl. She made one herself as an example and attached it to the blackboard to demonstrate. When I finished my project, I proudly took it up to show her and she looked at it shaking her head from side to side and said that my pear didn’t have the proper curves to it, and she told me to go back to my desk and make it right. The message was clear, I had made it WRONG!

So, that’s when I learned about the importance of getting things right. So, as anyone might expect, I was devastated by her less than complimentary reaction to my creation. I had been hoping to please her. Another important lesson I needed to learn, but didn’t until much later, was to do things to please myself, regardless of what anyone else thought.

Last and most damaging to me from that experience was, from that day on, I believed that I did not have a creative bone in my body, and resisted initiating any art work on my own. Again, I never realized until much later in life that art was expressed in a variety of contexts and mediums, one of which I’m doing right now.

In high school, I kinda started acting out a bit, and doing humorous skits, (also art, unbeknownst to me) mostly aimed at making fun of the nuns and using the Latin I was learning to write anonymous messages on the blackboard, like semper ubi, sub ubi, translated to always wear underwear. My sense of humor then became a major expression of who I was. I loved to laugh, but if I could make other people laugh, I was ecstatic, and felt like I’d found my purpose. My attempts at crossing the line by making a joke out of what was supposed to be holy and sacred gave me the most joy.

Laughter, humor, and music also came to be unique expressions of my spirituality, even if some viewed it as disrespectful and sacrilegious.

I wrote briefly about the sacred nature of laughter in my second essay,

Doin’ the Cosmic Dance . But there’s a much deeper spiritual significance to laughter that’s worth recognizing.

“Laughter, a universal expression of joy and mirth, holds a special place in spiritual traditions across cultures…It serves as a conduit for higher states of consciousness, a catalyst for healing, as well as a means of connection to the Divine… In some cultures, laughter is believed to attract positive energy and ward off negative influences, acting as a shield against darkness.” spiritual-meaning-of-laughing

Music became a part of my spirituality somewhere along the line, though I did not play an instrument, but when I was unable to sleep at night I’d listen to the radio, sometimes a Christian station would play some of the music from the sixties and seventies that we sang during folk Masses. Other times even just golden oldies carried meaning for me, such as I Will Follow Him, from Sister Act, hahaha! When I practiced contemplation, often some of these songs would come to me and they corresponded perfectly with something I had just read during lectio, (the first stage of contemplative prayer) from a book, or an article, a psalm, or a poem by Rumi. Sometimes I would google the song and listen to it as part of my meditation.

Another way I was able to remember who I am was by making my personalized collage-style greeting cards for my friends and family which always included some kind of humorous reference or photo. (also art, just sayin’)

When my counselor, Katie Grace, was helping me get in touch with my shadow side and I got stuck, she would give me some little creative project to do. I already mentioned my vision board in my first essay, Visions-of-the-sacred. Another time, she suggested that I make something that would reflect my true self by integrating both sides of my personality. At first that seemed too difficult, but then I gave it a go.

Katie also suggested I select someone as an alter ego who could help me express my humor, spirituality and creativity. I picked Dolly Parton because, not only was I a fan of hers, but in her sweet way, she could speak the truth to someone while at the same time let them know, in no uncertain terms, that she wouldn’t put up with any of their disrespect.

So here’s what my finished project looked like.

As you can see, what I created was a “calling card” of sorts, introducing myself as Sister Dolly, and on the back of the card I listed my skills and the services I was able to provide (presumably).

So there you have it folks. This is how far I’ve made it on my sacred journey, but I don’t think I’m done diggin’, nor have I reached my final destination quite yet, even if it is gettin’ late in the game.

Now, here’s my closing song, meant to be sung to oneself. It’s an oldie!! But a goodie.

Then read my special lyrics below which, hopefully, will bring the theme of this essay to a proper conclusion.

I Remember You

I remember you-ooh

You’re the one

Who Forgot that

You were You.

Just had no clue.

~

I remember you – ooh

You’re the one who said

You didn’t know how

To love yourself,

But now you do–ooh, ooh!

~

I remember too,

A distant call, my name,

in the ether,

From out of the blue – ooh, ooh!

~

When my life is through

And the angels ask me who I remember,

Most of all

Then I will tell them, I remember …

Tell them I remember you-ooh!